


Secondhand Embarrassment

by dontrollthedice



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontrollthedice/pseuds/dontrollthedice
Summary: "Yup, everything seems good." Scar looked down at the armrests of the throne and patted them twice. "Feels homey up here.""You look homey," Bdubs breathed.Oh, lord. This was happening again, wasn't it?----Or, five times Bdubs induces secondhand embarrassment amongst his friends + one time he embarrasses himself.
Relationships: GoodTimesWithScar/BDoubleO100, scardubs
Comments: 30
Kudos: 123





	Secondhand Embarrassment

**Author's Note:**

> petition to make more tags canonical in this fandom pls theres like 3 scardubs tags

Sometimes, Bdubs didn't think before he spoke.

But that was okay! Grian knew he certainly didn't think every time words came out of his mouth either, and neither did Scar. In fact, it was what solidified them as a solid group of friends: sheer idiocy.

Yet sometimes…

Grian sighed as he watched Bdubs layer heaps upon heaps of praise onto a prop plant display Scar had fashioned and Scar sheepishly thank him for every compliment. 

They had just finished creating the town hall scene for their school's theater. The entire ordeal had taken six hours, and all throughout he had had to tolerate so,  _ so _ much simping. Absurd amounts of simping that just made him want to tear his eyes out. Ugh.

"Hold on," Scar said, climbing onto the diamond throne they had built together, "Let me test the structural integrity of this thing before we pass it off to the theater guys. Don't want them to fall through the seat or anything."

It was obvious that wasn't the motive for sitting on the throne, but Grian accepted it with a chuckle anyway. "Structural integrity all right?"

"Yup, everything seems good." Scar looked down at the armrests of the throne and patted them twice. "Feels homey up here."

"You  _ look  _ homey," Bdubs breathed.

Oh, lord. This was happening again, wasn't it?

"You look nice up there. Like, really nice."

It was so awkward. Goodness, it was awkward as hell. Why did Bdubs say the things that he did?

Scar blinked, then smiled, not seeming to feel the way Grian did about it. Grian wished he didn't catch the way Bdubs's breath hitched at that. "Why, thank you."

Okay, this was happening. Grian wanted no part of this.

He pulled his phone out while the two giggled about thrones and mayors and texted the first person on his contact list.

**Grian [09:22]** call me right now  
**Etho [09:22]** ?

Oh, god, it was Etho. There was a fifty-fifty chance he was getting out of this situation only to worm himself into a worse one. Grian tended to do that a lot.

Nevertheless, his phone was ringing now, as he had requested. He knew an escape when he saw one.

“Hey, Etho’s calling me about our group project,” Grian said. “I think I have to go now. Bye!”

The two said their goodbyes and waved as Grian rushed out of the room, grabbing his backpack on the way. He accepted the call and made sure to make his voice as loud as possible in case they were listening.

“Hi, Etho! What’s up? What did you need to say about the project?”

Etho’s voice came quieter, calmer. “We turned that in yesterday.”

Grian watched the door shut behind him, and he sighed as he walked out of the school, squinting when the winter winds smacked against his face. “Yeah, I know. I needed an out, but you were the first person on my contact list. Sorry.”

“No problem. But uh… what were you trying to get away from?”

Grian sighed and began to explain. Throughout, he wondered if he should go back, but…

Nope. No way. Grian had a reputation for getting himself involved in things, but this was one situation he wouldn't touch with a pole.

* * *

Etho would admit he had laughed when he heard it. He had laughed when Grian had relayed the whole story to him, when he had acted out the entire situation to him, when he had complained to him.

But now that he was the one stuck in the corner of this shitty library with Bdubs and Scar (well, Beef had been scheduled to show up too, but the damn flake bailed on them last second), he wasn’t laughing anymore.

“Hey, Bdubs,” Scar called with a nudge. “You took this class last year, right? Can you help me with this problem?”

Bdubs took a look over, then snorted. “I barely passed physics. You might have better luck asking Etho.”

Etho locked eyes with Scar for just a split second before Scar looked away, mumbling something about figuring it out on his own. All the while Bdubs happily, obliviously hummed away while doodling on the sheet of paper he was supposed to be writing his essay on.

Jesus Christ.

Well, there was no running away from this like Grian had. Leaving felt rude. But maybe he could help.

Etho cleared his throat. “Bdubs, you were pretty okay with the kinetic energy unit, actually. I don’t think…"

Etho’s words died in his throat with how dejected Scar looked. There was something embarrassing about this whole situation, and frankly he wasn't used to feeling this much secondhand embarrassment no matter how dumb his friends were.

"Oh, I think Tango was really good at kinetics," Bdubs piped up.

Somehow, he made it worse. He made it so much worse.

"Bdubs," Etho called.

But if there was one thing Bdubs was known for, it was surely not listening. "Etho, why don't you text Tango about it? I don't think he'll appreciate me texting him after I spammed him about some calculus stuff last night."

Etho looked up at Scar, who gave him the saddest look he had ever seen on him before sliding his notebook over. Upon sparing the notebook a single look, it was obvious Scar knew exactly how to complete every problem on there, and Scar knew Etho knew.

Etho sighed and took his phone out.

**Etho [4:44]** Tango you got a minute?

Thankfully, he responded almost immediately.

**Tango [4:45]** Yeah! What's up man?  
**Etho [4:45]** help

* * *

Etho's cry for help had to be one of the more cryptic messages he had sent Tango, but it probably wasn't that bad, right? Tango liked to think he knew Bdubs well, and Bdubs wasn't an idiot like Etho had described.

Though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t paying attention now.

“Hey, Scar!” Tango called.

“Welcome,” Scar said from atop the stack of chairs he, Bdubs, and Grian had jokingly organized for the student council mayor (Tango still didn’t know why they hadn’t just gone with president, but that wasn’t his problem). His voice was almost echoey from the way he projected it in the room. “I have a mayor voice now.”

“Very echoey in here today,” Bdubs said.

“Indeed, indeed.” Scar lowered himself from the stack of chairs to stand in front of the two, coughing and clearing his throat. “You know, the mayor voice is great for business, but just for our casual chitchat among friends, I’ll turn it off.”

“Yes. Colleagues.”

Scar stilled. “Colleagues.”

Oh.  _ Oh. _ This was what Etho meant.

Tango’s shoulders tensed as his gaze darted between Scar’s blank face and Bdubs’s oblivious, friendly smile. Why did he say that? There was no reason to say that.

“Y-You just think of me as a colleague. That’s… fine.” Scar cleared his throat and looked away, plastering a smile on his face. “Look how high this chair goes!”

Tango’s stomach knotted as he watched the two make conversation about the chair stack. He wanted to make things right, fix this situation for his friends, to grab Scar by the shoulders and yell that Bdubs was just an idiot who called all his friends colleagues. Hell, he had called him and  _ Impulse _ colleagues when they were working on the Boomers project together. Bdubs messing up his words wasn’t anything to take personally.

But the conversation had already moved on. It was time for him to move on, too.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything…

Tango pulled out his phone and texted the only person who could probably do something at this point.

**Tango [3:42]** Yo, you up for a favor?  
**Keralis [3:43]** oh no

* * *

Keralis loved his friends. He really did! He just wished Tango hadn’t thrown him into the dumpster fire that was whatever the hell was going on between Scar and Bdubs.

But admittedly, getting the opportunity to pester his friend was fun.

“Missing a spot there, Bubbles,” Keralis said as he walked by Bdubs’s workstation. He giggled when Bdubs sighed, flicking the sink on to wash the paint out of his brushes.

Keralis had offered to join Bdubs and Scar in their seemingly daily afterschool grind sessions after Tango had cajoled him into it. Bdubs was busy painting some barrel props he had finished sculpting the other day and Scar arranging leaves on a fake tree. But that was alright with him. He had a life-sized tank to build, after all.

Scar’s gaze darted between Keralis and Bdubs before finally settling on Bdubs. He cleared his throat, then said, “You know, I’ve been thinking of giving you a nickname, too.”

All the ire washed off Bdubs’s face. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. How does ‘my love’ sound?”

Keralis muffled a chuckle.

Okay. Now he understood why Tango threw him under the bus. He didn’t forgive him, but he understood.

Bdubs grinned, raising his hand to ruffle Scar’s hair. “My sweet.”

Scar smiled under the affection with bright eyes. There was paint in his hair now, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Keralis let out a sigh of relief. Was this over now? Could things finally go back to normal? Could he go back and talk about payment from Tango for resolving this? He had been running out of acrylics lately, after all.

But first, he spotted something.

Keralis picked up Bdubs’s paint water cup to empty it out.

Bdubs blinked, then said, “Oh, thanks, sweetface.”

And just like that, the magic was gone. Scar’s smile fell, and he turned back to his work with a perceptible slump. Bdubs, to no credit, didn’t seem to notice. Keralis wanted to curl up into a ball and let the ground swallow him.

Bdubs was so stupid. He was just so stupid! He had never been this stupid before!

Keralis sent an apologetic look Scar’s way, but Scar seemed hellbent on avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. Even though it was no one’s fault—not his, not Scar’s, not Bdubs’s—he couldn’t help but feel bad anyway.

Damn it. It was time to pull out the big guns.

With nobody paying much attention to him, Keralis stepped out of the art room, just far enough to be out of earshot. He tapped on a contact on his phone, held it up to his ear, and waited.

“... Hello? Keralis?”

“Hi, Shishwammy. We have a problem.”

* * *

Frankly, Xisuma wondered why nobody had bothered telling him about this until now. He tried his best to be approachable to everyone; did people just not trust him with their relationship issues?

(Well, given the type of person he was, he understood why. But still…)

Now that he had been given some guidance on where to look from an alarming phone call with Keralis, there was certainly a tension between Scar and Bdubs in this student council meeting that he couldn’t quite describe. Xisuma had noticed it from the start to now, when the meeting officially ended and everyone went their own separate ways. 

But apparently Bdubs paid no attention to it.

“Hey, Scar,” Bdubs called, “wanna get dinner with me later?”

"Oh, god, here we go," Cub murmured to himself.

For the first time in that meeting, Scar’s face brightened. “Like, just the two of us?”

“Sure, if you don’t feel like inviting anyone else. I wanted to check out a place with Keralis, but he said he needed to do something with Doc, so…”

Xisuma glanced over at Keralis, who only offered him a panicked shrug before rushing out of the room. Keralis had never said anything about meeting up with Doc to him. Bdubs probably wouldn’t appreciate being lied to, but what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, right?

“It’ll be like, you know,” Bdubs said with his usual cheer, “dinner between colleagues!”

And just like that, Scar’s smile dropped, and Cub shook his head from his spot in the corner.

Oh. Oh, goodness, Xisuma finally  _ understood, _ and now he wished he could close his eyes to it again. He wanted to cringe, to run out of the room away from this mess of a situation, but he couldn’t. He had a job to fulfill.

“Oh,” Scar said, his voice monotone. “You know, I think Grian was saying something about wanting to try new places. You should see if he’s free today.”

Xisuma cleared his throat before Bdubs could respond. “Bdubs. A word outside, please?”

Bdubs sent him a confused look but walked outside the room with Xisuma. His hands were in his pockets as they took a stroll down the halls of the school.

“What’s up, X?” Bdubs asked. “You need help with anything?”

“No, no need. I’ve just been…” Goodness, what was he supposed to call it? He felt like a parent giving his child a talk about puberty.  _ “Noticing _ things.”

“Noticing things?”

“Yes. Things.”

Bdubs hummed in that way he did when he knew exactly what Xisuma was talking about but didn’t want to address it. “You’re noticing things for once? I’m so proud of you!”

Xisuma set a hand on his shoulder with an eye roll. “Oh, you know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“I think you do. I’ve known you for a very long time, Bdubs, and I’ve never seen you dance around someone so much as I’ve seen you dance around Scar.”

Well, it was out now. It was out and there was no taking it back, no matter how startled Bdubs looked at that, no matter how much Xisuma wished he’d never gotten involved. He wasn’t just involved now—he had his hand on the lid of the dumpster fire and was about to jump in.

“You don’t have to admit it or deny it,” Xisuma said. “I just wanted to tell you that I know that it’s scary opening up to people, admitting things to yourself. You saw me during middle school. I think we can both agree that was a horrendous time.”

Bdubs chuckled at that and leaned against the lockers, stopping their walk. He was on the right track.

“Protecting yourself like that feels nice in the moment. I don’t think it’s something that ever truly goes away either. But Bdubs.”

Silence.

“Bdubs, could you look at me, please?”

Bdubs hesitated, then slowly brought his gaze up to meet Xisuma’s.

Xisuma offered him what he hoped was a comforting smile. “We can’t protect ourselves at the expense of others, my friend. You’re hurting someone, and I think you know who you’re hurting.”

“... I’m hurting him?” came Bdubs’s response. It came out as a whisper, a whisper so fragile Xisuma felt speaking any louder would shatter his heart. “I never meant to—”

“I know. But sometimes we hurt the people we love most, and we have to stop doing whatever’s hurting them. In your case, it’s pretending you can’t see how Scar looks at you, pretending you don’t understand when Scar calls you sweet nicknames. And you can’t keep pretending you don’t want to reciprocate it all. You did spend the past five months before this debacle…” He paused to think. “Oh, what was the word? Simping? Simping for him.”

Bdubs groaned and covered his face with his hands, a stark departure from the fragileness of the conversation before. “X, no. I do  _ not _ want to hear that word coming out of your mouth.”

“What? Simp?”

“You’re doing this on purpose now.”

Xisuma laughed at that. “Well, I couldn’t  _ not _ use it after Jevin taught it to me. It’s the perfect word for the situation—”

“No! No, it isn’t!” Bdubs said with a pout. His pout softened into a smile when Xisuma continued laughing. “But yeah, you’re right. I’ve been kind of an idiot this entire time, haven’t I?”

“Oh, no, you’ve driven our friends mad. I don’t blame you, though. This kind of stuff is hard to figure out. I just don’t really… understand.” Xisuma tilted his head. “You love him, you know he loves you back. What’s the issue?”

“No, no, there’s no way…” Bdubs laughed, but it was the sort of humorless laugh that made Xisuma’s chest tight from worry. “He’s so perfect, X. He’s so kind, sweet, pretty, amazing—it doesn’t make sense. Why would he like me?”

Bdubs was shaking now, the slightest tremor wracking his body. Seeing it now hurt just as much as it did back in their middle school days, but it made sense. Bdubs had always felt the most, felt the strongest emotions and embraced them with all his heart. Nothing would change that about him, and there was nothing Xisuma could do besides talk him down. So he’d try that.

Xisuma stepped to the side to lean against the lockers besides Bdubs, and shrugged as casually as he could. “What makes you think people don’t see that in you? You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, Bdubs. If you don’t trust in yourself to make that judgement, trust me.”

Bdubs fell silent for a moment, then finally gave Xisuma a brilliant grin and chuckled. “Xisuma, you flatterer.”

Xisuma grinned back at him. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

Bdubs pushed himself off the wall of lockers and brushed his hands off. “Time to fix things, huh?”

Xisuma followed him, his own smile tugging at his lips. “Indeed,” he said, and when Bdubs pulled him into a hug, he hoped things would turn out for the best.

* * *

His friends better be right. If they weren’t, he’d wring all of their necks for putting him through the most embarrassing moment of his life.

(At least, Xisuma and Keralis had better be. Bdubs didn't know how far down the rabbit hole this whole thing went, but judging by the expectant glances Grian, Etho, and Tango had been sending him throughout the week, this went further than he would've liked.)

Bdubs had been staring at the same spot on the log prop he was supposed to have had done a week ago for god knew how long. Scar didn't notice right? Please tell him Scar didn't—

"Hey, Bdubs?" Scar called.

Bdubs looked up at him, not trusting his voice to not fail on him.

"You've been staring at that one spot for a while now. You need any help?"

Oh, hell, he noticed. Scar had such an attentive eye, after all. Bdubs shouldn't have expected any less from him.

"No, I just…" Bdubs swallowed and tried to anchor himself to what Xisuma had told him earlier. He needed to fix things. He couldn't keep locking himself behind closed doors and expect Scar to keep knocking. "I was just thinking about stuff, you know?"

And Scar gave him the infamously sweet smile that sent his heart tumbling down a cliff. "You wanna talk about it? I'm all ears." He paused. "Not literally, but I'm sure you already knew that."

_ Don't stare, Bdubs. Don't stare. _

Bdubs redirected his gaze back down at his fidgeting fingers. This was too much. His heart raced, and everything felt as if he was on fire. This sucked. God, this sucked!

Then he blurted, "I'm an idiot."

Silence.

Scar burst out laughing.

Some part of Bdubs died inside. He said that. That was seriously the first thing out of his mouth for this conversation.

But there was no way Scar was getting away with laughing like that; his pride wouldn’t allow it. "Hey! Stop laughing at me!"

"Sorry, sorry," Scar said in a tone that was suspiciously not sorry at all. "Why do you say you're an idiot?"

"Because I've liked you for an absurd amount of time and it only set in recently how much I like you."

Scar's laughter stopped. Bdubs felt his stomach twist and turn, but he continued.

"And it seems like everyone knows about how much I like you except  _ you. _ Dude, Xisuma called me a simp. A simp! Xisuma! I tried to lie to myself about it, tried to push you away, but then I see you and I just fall for you all over again. I'm really sorry I've been doing that. You don't deserve that, but it's… scary." Bdubs ended his sentence with a gulp, his voice fading out into the silence in the art room. He brought a knee up to his chest and hugged it close. He didn't dare look up to see Scar's reaction. "It's really scary."

Silence followed. Before Bdubs could apologize and take everything back, a hand settled on his shoulder. When he looked up, Scar was offering him a soft, warm smile.

"Bdubs," Scar called, "It’s okay to be scared. I was scared too, but… I told Cub about everything, and you know what he told me?”

Bdubs stayed silent, waiting for him to speak again.

“He said it didn’t make sense to  _ not _ be scared. He said that if I wasn’t at least a little bit scared of my own feelings, whatever came out of it in the end wouldn’t be worth it.” Scar paused, then his voice dropped to a mutter. “And then he rickrolled me, so you know. Take that as you will.”

Bdubs chuckled at that. “Sounds like Cub all right.”

“Yeah, he’s just like that. But he’s right, unfortunately. It’s like that thing about happiness and sadness. You can’t have love without anguish, can you?”

“... Wait,” Bdubs said, his mind reeling to catch up with what’s happening around him. “Are you saying—”

“I like you too, yeah. Can’t believe it took you this long to notice, but…” Scar shrugged.

Bdubs’s heart stopped. There were so many emotions exploding inside him he fought to tug one free from the chaos inside. Unfortunately, it just so happened to be pride. “Wh—took  _ me _ this long to notice? You’re the one who missed literally everything!”

God, he was an idiot. He was such an idiot! But luckily, Scar didn’t seem to mind.

Scar laughed before Bdubs could dig himself into a deeper hole. “Dude, I literally called you my love. Does it get more obvious than that?”

“Well, you called Grian the light of your life at one point. And how did _ Xisuma _ notice before you did?”

“I don’t know, how did  _ Ren _ notice before you?”

“Just because I didn’t say anything doesn’t mean I didn’t notice.”

“Maybe we’re both idiots,” Scar chuckled.

Bdubs laughed along with him, his defensiveness washing away with the sight of Scar’s smile. “Maybe.”

“Then, um…” Scar let out a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his head. “Can this idiot be your boyfriend, maybe?”

This was overwhelming. His heart filled with so much love, so much warmth he felt it could burst at any moment and it would all be Scar’s fault.

He was okay with that. If it was Scar, he was happy with anything.

“Of course,” Bdubs said. He had expected his voice to be loud, over-the-top, noisy enough to ring throughout the halls. But all he had left in him were the softest words he had ever heard from himself. He gave Scar the warmest smile he could, content with no longer needing to hide all the feelings he wanted to wear on his sleeve. “Only if you’d let this idiot be yours.”

And when Scar took Bdubs’s hand and said yes with that beautiful smile of his that made him feel a bit dizzy, Bdubs swore everything—including the embarrassment—was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> so there was that scene in bdubs's and scar's videos where scar calls bdubs a friend and bdubs says colleagues and scar says the "you just think of me as a colleague. thats... fine" line. then i noticed the lack of high school aus in this fandom and i just. i had to. hope nobody minds that


End file.
